Chapter 35: The Galaxy in My Chest
Location: The Primordial Garden – The Aftermath
The Rainbow Beam had faded.
Cang Yu, the Void Emperor, lay on the fractured crystal ground of the Primordial Garden. His grey armor was shattering, flaking away like burnt paper to reveal the fading human form beneath.
He looked up at Jiang Chen. The malice in his eyes was gone, replaced by a hollow, ancient exhaustion.
"You won," Cang Yu wheezed, his voice sounding like wind through a tomb. "The Trinity... it works."
Jiang Chen stood over him, holding Nightfall. The blade was calm now, but the air around Jiang Chen twisted with EX-Rank pressure.
"Why?" Jiang Chen asked. "You were the First Sovereign. You could have saved the galaxy. Why seal it off? Why join the Void?"
Cang Yu laughed weakly. He reached into his chest and pulled out a jagged, white key. It wasn't made of matter; it was made of solidified Space-Time Laws.
"I didn't join the Void to destroy the galaxy," Cang Yu whispered. "I did it to hide it."
He tossed the key to Jiang Chen.
[Item Acquired: The Ascension Key]
[Description: Unlocks the Canal to the Upper Realm.]
"Above us... is the Immortal Realm," Cang Yu coughed, black blood spilling. "There, a 'Sovereign' is nothing. Here, I was a God. There? I would be an ant. I closed the Ascension Canal to prevent the Immortals from coming down... and to prevent us from going up to our deaths."
Cang Yu's body began to dissolve into particles of light.
"But you... you are different. You ate the Void. You birthed a monster." He glanced at the sleeping Baby Xing in the distance. "Maybe you won't be an ant."
"Go, Jiang Chen. The Canal is open. The Mortal Realm... is too small for you now."
Cang Yu closed his eyes. He faded away, returning to the chaos from which he came.
The Lord of the Galaxy
Jiang Chen held the Ascension Key. He felt the universe trembling.
With the Void Emperor dead and the Ten Void Lords annihilated, the suppression on the galaxy was lifted.
[System Notification]
[The Galactic Core is unclaimed.]
[Sovereign Jiang Chen identified as the Apex Entity.]
[Title Awarded: Lord of the Galaxy.]
[Effect: You are the Galaxy. The Galaxy is you.]
Jiang Chen felt a pull in his chest. His Grandmist Core—which had merged with the Origin Orb—was expanding. It was hungry. But not for food. It was hungry for space.
"I can't leave them behind," Jiang Chen whispered.
He looked at the Void Piercer. He thought of Terra Nova. He thought of Earth.
If he ascended to the Immortal Realm, he would leave this universe behind. Millions of years might pass here while he was gone.
"System," Jiang Chen commanded. "Activate Planetary Devourer... No. Activate Galactic Integration."
[Warning: This action requires EX-Rank Soul Strength.]
[You are attempting to move the entire Milky Way Galaxy into your Internal Dantian.]
[Proceed?]
"Proceed."
Jiang Chen flew into the center of the Primordial Garden. He spread his arms.
The three rings behind his head—Black, Gold, Purple—spun so fast they became a single white halo.
"I am the Container."
RUMBLE.
Across the galaxy, from Earth to Oasis-4, the sky changed. The stars didn't vanish; they moved.
Space folded.
Jiang Chen's chest shone with a light brighter than a supernova.
He sucked it in.
The planets, the stars, the nebulas, the civilizations. They were pulled into a sub-dimension located inside his Grandmist Core.
To the people on Earth, nothing changed. The sun still shone. The ground was still solid. They didn't realize that their entire reality was now contained within the body of one man.
Jiang Chen gasped, sweat pouring down his face. He felt heavy. He felt the weight of trillions of lives.
[Integration Complete.]
[Internal Universe Created.]
[Population: 400 Trillion.]
[Jiang Chen Status: Galaxy-Class Lifeform.]
He floated in absolute nothingness. The physical universe around him was gone. He had packed his bags.
Now, only the Ascension Canal remained.
It was a massive, golden staircase appearing in the void, leading upward into a veil of shimmering mist.
"Mo You? Feng Xi?" Jiang Chen projected his voice internally.
"We are here, Husband!" Feng Xi's voice echoed in his mind. "It's cozy in here! The stars are so close! And Xing'er is sleeping on Saturn's rings!"
"Good," Jiang Chen smiled. "Hang tight. We're going upstairs."
The Ascension
Jiang Chen stepped onto the Golden Staircase.
[Step 1.]
Gravity increased by 100x.
[Step 10.]
Gravity increased by 1,000x.
[Step 100.]
The air pressure was enough to crush a neutron star.
Any cultivator below SSS-Rank would have exploded instantly. But Jiang Chen walked casually, his EX-Rank body adapting to the laws of the Higher Realm.
He reached the top. A massive gate stood there, guarded by lightning bolts the size of dragons.
[The Tribulation of Ascension]
The lightning struck him.
ZAP.
Jiang Chen didn't dodge. He absorbed it.
"Tastes like mint," Jiang Chen muttered.
He pushed the gates open.
Location: The Lower Immortal Realm – The Wilderness of Desolation
Jiang Chen stepped through the gate.
He fell.
THUD.
He hit the ground hard, creating a small crater.
"Heavy," Jiang Chen gasped, forcing himself to stand.
The gravity here was terrifying. It was at least 10,000 times that of Earth. The air was thick, like breathing soup.
He looked around.
He was in a massive forest. But the trees were blue, towering kilometers high, their bark shimmering like metal. The grass was sharp enough to cut diamond.
[System Rebooting...]
[Calibrating to New Laws...]
[Realm Detected: The True Cultivator Realm (Lower Immortal Plane).]
Jiang Chen checked his status.
[Name: Jiang Chen]
[Rank: EX (Mortal) -> Conversion...]
His "EX" rank was shattering. The Mana in his body was being compressed, refined, and forcibly evolved into Spirit Qi.
[New Rank: Peak Tribulation Transcender]
Jiang Chen frowned. "I went from the top of the food chain... to the middle?"
He analyzed the new power system that flooded his mind.
Tier 1: True Cultivator Realm (The Shedding)
* Spirit Awakening (The start)
* Earthly Vessel
* Sky Roaming
* Void Touching
* Tribulation Transcender (Where Jiang Chen is now).
Tier 2: Immortal Realm (The Eternal)
* False Immortal
* True Immortal
* Golden Immortal
* Immortal King
* Immortal Emperor
"I am a Tribulation Transcender," Jiang Chen clenched his fist. The air popped loudly. "That means I am one step away from becoming a False Immortal. Not bad for a rookie."
ROAR.
A sound shook the blue trees.
Emerging from the brush was a wolf. But it had three heads, was the size of a bus, and its fur burned with blue fire.
[Monster: Cerberus Wolf]
[Rank: Earthly Vessel (Late Stage)]
The wolf saw Jiang Chen. It sensed fresh meat. It sensed a "Mortal" scent.
It pounced.
On Earth, a monster of this size would be a calamity. Here, it was a common pest.
Jiang Chen didn't draw his sword.
"You think I'm prey?" Jiang Chen laughed.
He punched.
He didn't use mana. He used the physical weight of the Galaxy inside his chest.
CRACK.
His fist hit the wolf's snout.
The wolf didn't just die. It vaporized. The impact created a shockwave that flattened ten kilometers of the iron-hard forest.
[Combat Assessment: Although your Cultivation Rank is 'Tribulation Transcender', your Physical Stats are equivalent to a 'Golden Immortal'.]
"I see," Jiang Chen smirked. "My cultivation reset, but my body is still the Sovereign."
He dusted off his hands.
"System. Locate the nearest civilization. I need to find out where I am."
[Scanning...]
[City Detected: 500 Miles North. 'Cloud Soaring City'.]
Jiang Chen leaped into the air.
Normally, he could teleport. But the space here was too dense. He could only fly.
"Sky Roaming," Jiang Chen muttered, blasting through the sonic barrier. "Let's go say hello to the Immortals."
Inside the Internal World (Jiang Chen's Dantian)
While Jiang Chen flew, his family was having a picnic on the moon.
"The view changed," Jiang Wu pointed up at the 'sky' of the internal world. "The energy coming in is different. It's richer."
"That's Spirit Qi," Feng Xi said, munching on a Spirit Fruit. "Husband is filtering it for us. If we went outside right now, we'd be crushed flat like pancakes."
Baby Xing was awake. He was looking at the new energy filtering in.
He reached out his hand.
Grab.
He caught a wisp of the Immortal Spirit Qi.
He ate it.
Burp.
[Jiang Xing: Spirit Lamp Stage 2 -> Stage 3.]
"He likes the new food," Mo You noted. "This realm... it will be a good hunting ground."
Location: Cloud Soaring City – The Gates
Jiang Chen landed outside the city. The walls were made of white jade, towering a thousand meters high.
Guards in golden armor stood at the gate. They radiated the aura of Earthly Vessel cultivators.
"Halt!" A guard pointed a spear. "Identify yourself! Which Sect are you from?"
Jiang Chen straightened his collar.
"I am a rogue cultivator," Jiang Chen said. "From the... lower villages."
The guard sneered. "A bumpkin? Entry fee is 10 Spirit Stones."
"Spirit Stones?" Jiang Chen paused. He had trillions of Credits and tons of Gold, but no Spirit Stones.
"I don't have stones," Jiang Chen said honestly. "But I have this."
He pulled out the core of the Cerberus Wolf he had just killed. It glowed with blue fire.
The guard's eyes widened.
"A... A Tier-3 Beast Core? You killed a Cerberus alone?"
The guard looked at Jiang Chen's clothes. Weird fabric. No Sect insignia. But the aura... it was dense.
"Apologies, Senior!" The guard bowed instantly. "A Beast Core of this quality covers the fee for a month. Please, enter Cloud Soaring City!"
Jiang Chen smiled.
"Money talks," he whispered, walking through the massive gates. "Even in heaven."
He stepped into the bustling streets of the Immortal Realm.
Cultivators flew on swords overhead. Shops sold pills that could extend life by a hundred years. The air buzzed with power.
Jiang Chen took a deep breath.
"New map," he grinned. "New conquest."
[Quest Added: Establish a Foothold.]
[Objective: Join a Sect or Create a Faction.]
"Join a Sect?" Jiang Chen scoffed.
"I'll buy one."